Everywhere we went, people told us it couldn't be done-- and
that if it could be done, it would've been done by now,"
says Willy Paterson-Brown, 33. But Paterson-Brown and his brother,
Tim, 38, weren't discouraged by the naysayers. The
Scottish-born entrepreneurs attacked the task ahead of them with
the underdog fervor of David challenging Goliath--carving out a
place for their upstart company among the tissue industry's
biggest players.

Seattle-based Linters Inc., the company the brothers founded in
1994, is the maker of Purely Cotton, the world's first and only
100 percent cotton tissue products. The bottom line? Last
year's limited regional distribution of Purely Cotton products
brought in sales of $14 million, and the brothers estimate that the
deployment of national distribution later this year will triple
their company's annual sales.

Willy and Tim could sense from the beginning that they had a
winner. After all, America is crazy about cotton, from wearing it
to sleeping on it. And why wouldn't health-conscious and
environmentally aware consumers take just as keenly to the use of a
less-abrasive renewable resource in their facial tissues and toilet
paper? And here's the kicker--it's not toilet paper
at all. Goodbye, wood pulp: Says Willy, "The beauty of the raw
material of cotton is it's just so much better for the
skin."

Square One

Born and raised in Hawick, Scotland, the brothers' careers
in the United Kingdom ultimately led to a joint venture in the
United States. "We both started off [building] strong
corporate backgrounds and then branched out on our own," says
Willy. "We were both able to get into business for ourselves
[in Scotland] and [then sold] those businesses at roughly the same
time."

They were playing a game of golf one day when it hit them: Why
not pursue their next business venture together? "We felt it
would work well because our strengths and weaknesses were in
different areas. Tim's strengths were more in corporate finance
and in strategic areas, and mine were more in sales and
marketing," says Willy. "So we pooled our
resources."

In their search for a new business, they each heard separately
about a company in London called Multi-Soft PLC: One of Tim's
former colleagues mentioned the company to him; meanwhile, the
brothers' mother had also heard of the company and she
mentioned it to Willy. "`You're the sales and marketing
guy,' she told me. `Why don't you have a look at
it?'" recalls Willy. "When I talked to my brother
about it, he was amazed. `Somebody was just telling me about that
company,' he said."

The group of investors that then owned Multi-Soft had purchased
the concept of a disposable tissue made from raw materials other
than wood pulp from a student who said he had thought of the idea
while he was traveling through China. "This chap thought it
could be done and sold the idea to the investors for roughly
$30,000," says Willy.

At the time the brothers contacted Multi-Soft, the company was
looking to raise funds and had a low-quality prototype made from 50
percent straw and 50 percent recycled denim jeans. In early 1995,
the brothers found equity partners and raised the $1 million they
needed to purchase Multi-Soft. Then they privatized the company and
moved it to the United States.

Still, the brothers had no marketable product. "We went
back to the basics, and instead of trying denim, a recycled
textile, we went straight to the raw material," says Willy.
They found they could use the short fibers of cotton, known as
linter, and with the help of a chemist, their quest for the perfect
formula began.

Not a Square to Spare

Discouraged by some and encouraged by others in the tissue
industry, Willy and Tim knew it would be a long, hard road.
"But if we could do it, [we knew] there'd be a
market," says Willy. They subcontracted with various paper
manufacturers for the machine time needed to experiment with their
formula. Their first sign of hope came at the end of a particularly
grueling 16-hour session.

"We'd bought machine time for a period of 24 hours and
had to clean the machines out before we put the cotton mix in. We
ran it time after time, but we just couldn't get it
[right]," Willy says. The weary team had been working since
first thing that morning. By the time things finally appeared to be
looking up, it was 11 p.m.

"But [just after] something that sort of looked like tissue
came off, a crashing sound almost like thunder rang throughout the
factory," Willy says. The machine ground to a halt as smoke
filled the air and billowed out the windows.

They'd produced the equivalent of about one square of
tissue, says Willy. But it was a start. They left and celebrated
the night's progress over beers. "It was extraordinarily
exciting to have produced something right at the end," Willy
says, "and we knew where to start next time around."

Sure enough, the next time they ran a formula test, they
produced their prize within three hours: an all-cotton tissue with
some quality. "We were finally vindicated," says
Willy.

One hurdle down, plenty to go. Manufacturing was the next big
challenge. "You can't go to the top manufacturers, because
they own 85 percent of the market and they're not going to
support a new, unique company," says Tim. Instead, Linters
identified several smaller, independent manufacturing companies
that weren't worried about conflicts of interest and that had
the engineering expertise to produce all-cotton tissue.

As the partners continued to improve their formula, the next
task was to move toward the marketplace. Backed by positive results
from more than $1 million in blind in-home studies, and clinical
tests for abrasion, absorbency and toxicity, marketing proved
easier than anticipated. Says Willy: "Of the first 14
retailers I made presentations to, 14 of them said yes."

Sales of the Purely Cotton line in Texas test markets in 1996
reached $70,000. In 1997, with expanded
distribution throughout the Pacific Northwest, the company brought
in $2.5 million from stores such as Albertson's supermarkets
and Rite Aid drug stores.

Squaring Off

Purely Cotton was on a roll, and Willy and Tim were carving a
niche for their company in the midst of such giants as
Kimberly-Clark and Procter & Gamble. "We try to be
creative in both our supply arrangements and our marketing strategy
so we're not knocking heads and being an irritant to the big
people," says Tim.

Also key to Linters' strategy is differentiating itself from
being just another "me too" product on store shelves.
While wood-based tissues are all marketed solely on softness and
price, contends Willy, "We try to sell Purely Cotton based on
its benefits and attributes." Among the benefits? "Tests
[comparing cotton and wood pulp] found that our tissue was the
least disruptive product [to the skin] as a result of having a
different chemical content," he says.

The company's growing sales have been fueled by not only the
brothers' devotion to the all-cotton concept but the duo's
equity philosophy as well: It's not about 100 percent
ownership, says Tim. "We've surrounded ourselves with
[equity partners] who are far better than we are in pretty much
every capacity of the business," he says of the $20 million in
investment capital the brothers have raised to date. "Our role
is to strategically plan the best enhanced value of the
business."

"We don't want to suffocate the company by not
realizing its potential," agrees Willy. "And if that
means diluting [our percentage of ownership] to bring in the equity
that's required, then we're prepared to do that."

Having achieved their initial innovative breakthrough, the
brothers believe many possibilities lie ahead for Linters Inc. Full
nationwide distribution will be complete later this year. The
product line will soon grow to include such items as paper towels,
napkins, feminine hygiene products--even baby diapers. They hope to
turn last year's sales of $14 million into a dazzling $50
million this year.

And what does their mother think now of the idea she casually
tossed to her sons? "She's a very happy shareholder,"
says Willy. In a family where both parents are retired doctors,
their late grandfather was a surgeon, and an elder brother and
sister are also physicians, it appears Purely Cotton has brought
the brothers as close to things anatomical as they're going to
get--a source of humor for the family.

Together, the pioneering duo has come full circle: "Purely
Cotton [presents] an opportunity for going beyond America into
Europe as well," says Tim. "It's been a lot of fun
putting the pieces together."